Here we go!
December 1, 2022: Atlanta, GA. I played a little quartet gig for an awards ceremony for home renovations. It was nuts, because the winners would be "The winner for 2022's best mudroom renovation is So and So Designs, who spent $112,000 on cabinets and a bench and expensive tile floor in this gorgeous Morningside Mansion!" Over and over. Big, insane budgets. $80,000 man cave kind of stuff. A renovation to your three car garage at your cabin at Lake Hartwell.
Anyway, the gig was pretty cool. I thought it was going to be a jazz standards kind of thing, but it ended up being more eclectic, like instrumental versions of Stevie Wonder songs. I played an hour of solo saxophone for the cocktail hour, and that was my big chance to wear myself out playing over standards.
Night two had a lady jump up on stage during Baker Street. As I turned to go back to my keyboards for the verse, she went charging by me with Zach hot on her heels. They were gone before I could even process what was happening. Somewhere on the internet, there's a video of him scooping her up and carrying her off.
We played mostly our usual setlist with a few of the holiday songs sprinkled in.
The Wellmont. Another big crowd in this cavern of a room. Once you get used to the acoustics, it's not bad.
Friday, December 9, 2022: Atlanta, GA. I played a pickup jazz quintet gig for some company's holiday party. These are always amusing--there's no leader, and often you barely know the people with whom you're playing, so in this case, the young vocalist was very aggressive about handling the gig, and the two of us who have been around the local scene for a good while were like "have at it." There were also a couple of guys who were so young/green that they were too busy struggling with the music to notice anything else, which was kind of...annoying. I guess all that is fine? It was fine. We got paid, even got a cash tip. So, whatever.
Lots of gear for this one. There was all the Yacht Rock stuff, plus a small contingent of the Atlanta Pops to flesh out the string and horn parts, and a conductor. I guess we all meshed pretty well, but everything came together at the last minute, so we were all glued pretty hard to our charts.
No Bencuya on this one (his daughter was sick), so we had Hop's regular keyboardist Brian Bisky fill in.
One song that has been released is Snow, featuring the one and only Debbie Boone. Check this out!
Friday, December 16, 2022: Columbia, SC. Back to our regular programming! This was a regular Yacht Rock show at The Senate in Columbia, though it's kind of a fundraiser, so...I don't know. Anyway, this place is a pretty good spot to play, and after Hop's gig, it was nice to get our feet back under ourselves. The mayor was in attendance, and declared December 16 to be Yacht Rock Revue Day, so there's that. The guy making my sandwich at the Subway was impressed.
Post run/pre gig backstage noodling:
I had too much. It made packing up my gear very difficult.
Two things I remember about this one: 1. We played a tune called Vilia off one of the newest Coltrane albums--kind of cool to play a "new" Trane tune on a gig. 2. Billy stopped in the middle of his solo on Valse Hot, ending the tune. "Sorry. I was hating that one."
The train got me! This freight train was stopped right outside the venue, and I had to go about a mile down the road to get around the end of it so I could circle back to the gig.
I didn't get much time to spend on these little social media projects this year, but I did finish this one before Christmas.
Saturday, December 31, 2022: Indianapolis, IN. Last show of the year.
At midnight, all hell broke loose, and we were all running around in circles on stage, and there were balloons and chaos and then it was over. I had two glasses of champagne. Hopefully I put away my gear safely. Drinking after gigs is tough, but I'm two for two.
Tuesday, January 3, 2023: Marietta, GA. I laid down my parts for the next Yacht Rock Revue album. The vibes are definitely better than on the previous album. I think I played on five songs on this day. I think the final product is going to be cool.
Monday, January 9, 2023: Atlanta, GA. We had a few days of rehearsal to bring back our Talking Heads Stop Making Sense show. My involvement was pretty minimal/repetitive, as there are not quite two keyboard players worth of parts. The Great Bencuya had more stuff happening--it felt like I spent most of my time watching him play cool stuff. I am very much just along for the ride on this show.
At the end of Wednesday's rehearsal, we did a photo shoot with local legend Emily Butler for some new band promo. Here's one--dig it!
Tuesday, January 10, 2023: Atlanta, GA. I played a nice little trio gig with Andrew Eulau (bass) and Micah Caldwell (guitar). One cocktail hour for a bunch of wedding planners. Easy stuff. Very good people.
I had it in my head that there were only going to be a few hundred people there--maybe somebody had said that ticket sales were light--but it was pretty full, and we were all really excited to do this show for a big hometown crowd. I think it went well!
Saturday, January 14, 2023: Athens, GA. I got screwed by Atlanta traffic/construction, missed the van meetup, and had to drive myself to Athens. Not the best start to my day.
No big deal. I got there just around the same time as the van, so I didn't miss anything.
And there's a video! Check this out...
